Help me understand the Super Hero genre

[Strangler Lewis]

I enjoy the "familiar" super hero movies well enough. On the other hand, it's something of a guilty pleasure. I don't see much meaningful difference between the super hero (and Bond) movies that this crowd anticipates and flocks to and Stallone/Schwarzenegger/Bruce Willis movies that I doubt inspired similar reactions. It's all tough guys kicking ass while spouting extremely tiring one liners.

What really gets my goat, though, are the recent TV shows like Heroes and all the Profiler-type shows where the cop sees dead people, or the future, or ten seconds into the future, or into the victim's mind (all the while with a shocked quizzical look on their face). I like my Hollywood liberal, skeptical, secular and anti-war. If I want to watch a war show, give me a good episode of JAG or Rat Patrol over a p**ssified, me-too-kind-of show like Heroes.